Heretofore, halogenated phenol compounds or organotin compounds were frequently used as active ingredients of industrial antifungal agents. However, these compounds have high acute toxicity as well as in chronic toxicity and also are relatively hard to be decomposed. And there is a fear for a secondary environmental pollution caused by accumulation of said compounds in the antifungal agents containing the same. Accordingly, these compounds have now come to be unsuitable for use. On that account, antifungal agents which are higher by far in safety have come to be developed enthusiastically, and 3-iodo-2-propynyl butylcarbamate (hereinafter, referred as to IPBC) etc. are used for controlling fungi of paints, woods and so on. However, as IPBC has antifungal activity against limited species of fungi, it is difficult to acquire a sufficient efficacy for using said compound solely. So, necessary amount of IPBC for satisfying the purpose becomes sometimes high, and then it is not economical. 4,5-Dichloro-2-octyl-isothiazolin-3-one (hereinafter referred as to COIT) and methyl 2-benzimidazolylcarbamate (hereinafter, referred as to BCM) are known as industrial antifungal agents with high safety. When such agent is solely used, fungicide resistance has often developed and high concentration is required to get sufficient efficacy. So, such compound is deficient for industrial antifungal agent.
In order to solve such problems, a lot of attempts such as the combination of various fungicides, the expansion of fungicidal spectrum and the increasing of antifungal activity have been conducted. In general, the combination shows the fungicidal activity of each compound or merely additive activity of each compound. For example, JP sho-63-41405A demonstrates the use of sodium 1,4-bis(2-ethylhexyl)sulfosuccinate as the stabilizer of IPBC. JP hei-2-164803A demonstrates the combination of IPBC with benzimidazole compounds. However, the combination did not show the synergistic activity, and the antifungal activity was not sufficient. JP hei-3-251508A demonstrates the combination of benzimidazole compounds with isothiazoline compounds, and JP hei-7-133205A demonstrates the combination of COIT and IPBC. However, as the fungus species not to be controlled by these combinations have occurred, developing more effective antifungal compositions are desired.
This invention was made to solve above-mentioned problems, and an object of the invention is to provide industrial antifungal compositions which have excellent antifungal activities as well as excellent broad spectrum against a wide variety of species of fungi.